18 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



of wouiida from maay fights with sea and whales better 

 than herring scales ! 



We enjoy the enforced rest : all last night we towed a big 

 whale alongside seventy tons' weight in a rising gale ! The 

 bumps and thumps and jerks and aroma were very tiresome. 



We towed it ninety miles from the outer ocean to our station 

 at Colla Firth, on Mr R. C. Haldane's property of Lochend, in 

 the early morning (it is light all night here), and left it 

 floating at the buoy, went alongside the trestle pier, helped 

 ourselves to more coal, and slipped away again before the 

 station hands had time to rub their eyes or show a foot. 



We came up through the islands, ran to the north of 

 Shetland, passed Flugga Light, then turned tail like any 

 common fishing-boat and ran back before a rising gale to 

 this Balta Sound on the east for shelter. 



Our little Haldane doesn't care a straw for heavy weather, 

 but we on board her can't harpoon well or manage a whale in 

 heavy seas, so " weathering it out " only means waste of 

 coal. 



Therefore we spend the morning in shelter, tramping our 

 very narrow bridge (three steps and a spit, as the sailors say), 

 and we talk and sometimes go into our tiny chart-room 

 and draw ; and Henriksen plays Grieg on the melodeon ! 

 Henriksen is a whaler by profession, an artist under the 

 skin ; and the writer is an artist by profession and harpooneer 

 on this journey from choice and after long waiting. 



As we draw and chat we notice with admiration Swedish 

 line-boats like the Norwegian pilot-boat in type, sailing-boats 

 with auxiliary motors, coming up the loch with their sails 

 down, pit-put-a-put, dead in the wind's eyes ! We know 

 they have been cod and ling fishing in the North Atlantic 

 for several months, and are now full of fish packed in ice. 



" Ah," sighs Henriksen, " if I had a boat half the size of 

 this Haldane, with a motor and crude oil like them, I'd make 

 a good thing of whaling round the world," and the artist 

 agrees, for both have seen many whales in far-away seas. 

 Henriksen knows the Japanese seas where there are Right 

 whales Australis with bone, and Sperm, or Cachalot, with 

 spermaceti ; and the writer has seen sperm in other warm 



